Logistics Blog

Two years ago, “KC” arrived at the WFP Philippines office, based in Manila, as a Logistics Assistant. During her time with WFP, she has been involved in her fair share of typhoon and flood response operations, each of which has helped prepare her for her latest task. As part of a four-person logistics team coordinating the WFP relief effort for the recent floods, KC and her colleagues have had their work cut out for them. In this interview, she explains why.

The moment I stepped out from the metro station in central Tokyo on 16 March 2011, I noticed that the Capital was so strangely dark and quiet. The UNU HQ building, where the WFP Tokyo outpost is, was freezing cold as the heating system had been shut down. There was barely any traffic, most of the shops were closed and food items had disappeared from the shelves of stores. I had never seen Tokyo in such a state in my life.

When Kiyoyuki Kobayashi joined WFP in 1990, little could he have imagined that his career with the organization would be inextricably tied up with the destiny of a group of Hino trucks. And yet, across two continents and more than two decades, he has been the godfather of the trucks that still today make up the backbone of WFP’s fleet in Afghanistan.

Consolata Kwadi, "Conso" for short, has been working with WFP as a Logistics Officer at Dadaab refugee camp since March 2005. A self-proclaimed "logistician for life", Conso tells us that Dadaab is nothing like it was when she began there.

A little over two decades ago, it was a small sleepy village in a northern region in Kenya, 20km from the border of southern Sudan. In 1989, it was established and managed by WFP as a strategic airbase under “Operation Lifeline Sudan” (OLS).

At nearly 2,500km away in the WFP country office in Niamey, Niger, Halima Ida-Issa, Officer-in-Charge of the Logistics Unit, is speaking with her team members on how to deliver 240mt of rice to the city of Monrovia, Liberia.

Imagine that you are the Head of Logistics in Côte d’Ivoire, assigned to coordinate and manage an emergency operation which will deliver food assistance to over 220,000 people. There are many moving parts which must be coordinated, all the while considering the current instability of the country’s security situation.

As a volunteer at the Loyo Food Distribution Point (FDP) in central Turkana, Kenya, Amase has been distributing WFP food assistance to beneficiaries for 10 years. A native Kenyan, she found her way to the village of Loyo when fighting broke out in her hometown in Todonyang along the Kenyan/Ethiopian border, and she lost everything – including her husband.